On Oct. 22, 2008, as the stock market plunged 500 points and millions were losing their jobs at the start of the Great Recession, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez had one pressing matter he had to fix.

He had to get a visa for the mistress of his good friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen of Florida.

Menendez wrote a letter to the U.S. consul general in the Dominican Republic, where the girlfriend and model lived, asking that the general give "all due consideration" to the visa application for the woman and her sister. The visas eventually were granted.

That is just one example of how the public duty clashed with the private life of the powerful Democratic senator from New Jersey, but not the only one, federal prosecutors say.

In 2010, Menendez was scheduled to talk to the secretary of Health and Human Services about what he saw as the government's unfair demand for the return of $8.9 million in taxpayer money. The government wanted its Medicare money back from Melgen, an eye doctor.

The problem for Menendez was this: He couldn't talk to the head of HHS at the appointed time because he was on Melgen's private jet — heading to a vacation at the doctor's exclusive hideaway resort in the Caribbean.

Federal prosecutors say such closeness shows the senator and Melgen had a relationship that corrupted Menendez and amounted to 27 violations of the law — 14 counts for Menendez and 13 for Melgen — that could land both men in prison for more than 20 years.

Prosecutors say the many free trips, lavish vacations, dinners, golf outings and political donations from Melgen, all of which topped $1 million, transformed Menendez into the doctor's personal government agent, with the senator eager to use his clout to fight for Melgen's interests, big and small.

Menendez personally saw to it that visas were given to three of Melgen's girlfriends in 2006, 2007 and 2008. After Menendez's intervention, the denial of a visa application was reversed for one of the women, according to the Justice Department indictment handed up last week.

The complaint reads like a cross between the National Enquirer and "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." The girlfriends of the married Melgen came from Brazil, Spain and the Dominican Republic. All were models. One came for schooling, another for plastic surgery. One was a model and a lawyer.

As a Paris vacation was booked with 649,611 bonus points from Melgen's American Express Rewards card, prosecutors charge, the senator was particular about his accommodations at the upscale Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome. He wrote to Melgen saying that he wanted a king bed, a "limestone bath with soaking tub and enclosed rain shower" and a nice view. Total value: $4,934.

The second-term Democrat and Melgen have both pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. Menendez, whose term ends in 2019, said he has no plans of stepping down.

Menendez said he and the doctor are friends going back to 1993 and insists that the gifts had no influence on his work as a member of Congress.

"These allegations are false, and I am confident they will be proven false, and I look forward to doing so in court," Menendez said after a court appearance.

The explosive case doesn't have bags of cash being pushed across the table to Menendez by the doctor, a possible problem for the prosecutors at trial, experts say.

Brigid Callahan Harrision, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University, said the list of gifts to Menendez is "stunning'' but added, "In reading the indictment, I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, where it says there is a quid pro quo, where Melgen says, 'I'm giving this money in exchange for Menendez's advocacy.' And it's not there. No recording, no email, nothing."

Scott Coffina, a former associate counsel to President George W. Bush now at the Drinker Biddle law firm in Philadelphia, said the government will have to prove "intent of corrupt actions without an explicit quid pro quo."

"I think the facts in the complaint are largely going to be supported. The question will become, what was the intent?'' Coffina said. "It's not typical for members of Congress to get these types of benefits from friends, and if they do they're usually very careful about to not take official action on behalf of those friends."

Other New Jersey politicians have rallied in support of Menendez. Shortly after the indictment was made public Wednesday, dozens of support statements were sent out by state and federal elected officials. The IStandWithBob.com website was activated by the Menendez for Senate campaign committee, which has $1.45 million cash on hand, according to The Associated Press.

The New Jersey Democratic State Committee has generated at least six news releases since then with statements from nearly three dozen local and national officials and community leaders.

None of the statements specifically weighs in on the ethics of Menendez's choice to accept gifts.

New Jersey's other senator, Cory Booker, emailed a statement supporting Menendez almost immediately after the indictment was announced, calling him "an invaluable resource and a mentor to me since I arrived in the Senate. Our system of justice is designed to be fair and impartial, and it presumes innocence before guilt. I won't waver in my commitment to stand alongside my senior senator to serve our great state."

But the next day, Booker didn't want to talk about where the line is between friendship with a donor and corruption, or if it's OK for a member of Congress to accept gifts of the magnitude that Menendez accepted.

"He is not available," Booker spokeswoman Silvia Alvarez said in an email responding to the interview request.

Former state assemblyman Lou Manzo, who had a corruption case against him twice thrown out by a judge before the charges ultimately were dismissed, said the Menendez indictment reveals "ugly behavior" but added, "The government has a weak case."

"They list the money. They list the favors. It looks sordid. There is ugly behavior," Manzo said. "But they don't have the explicit tying together of the money and gifts to the favors. Without that, there's no crime."

Melgen owned a 10-seat Hawker Siddeley jet and a 12-seat CL-600 Challenger, which were stocked with refreshments and flown by his private flight staff. Menendez was a frequent flier.

Menendez isn't the first elected official to enjoy special privileges. Similar issues were raised recently in connection with Gov. Chris Christie's acceptance of expensive gifts and free travel from King Abdullah of Jordan — who picked up the tab for a visit to his country by Christie and his family in 2012 — and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Christie said state law allows him to accept gifts from relatives or friends. But the American Legal Defense Fund filed a complaint in January with the state Ethics Commission, suggesting a possible connection between trips Christie took to Cowboys games on Jones' plane and the governor's push two years earlier to award a lucrative Port Authority of New York and New Jersey contract to a company Jones is invested in.

Christie has denied a connection between the two and described it as a matter of opportunity .

"I relish these experiences and exposures, especially for my kids," he told The New York Times. "I try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can."

The Menendez case is unique in one respect: It is the first political corruption investigation to probe big-money super PAC donations.

Melgen, through his medical company, gave $600,000 to the Senate Majority PAC in 2012, and the PAC spent $582,000 on Menendez's campaign. Menendez defeated Republican Joseph Kyrillos to win his second Senate term.

"This is the first really concrete example we have that the Supreme Court was dead wrong when it said super PACs like this could not be vehicles for corrupting government decisions and officeholders," said Fred Wertheimer, head of the Democracy 21 good government group. "This case at this stage is only an indictment, not a conviction, but it shows how outside groups can be indirectly used to buy influence."

Though Menendez and Melgen are expected to use a friends-giving-friends-gifts defense, Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause, said that doesn't hold up because of the campaign contributions.

"I think the large amount of money that individuals can contribute to campaigns, that's not friendship anymore; that's putting money into a politician's control and campaign in the expectation of getting something out of it," Rapoport said. "This is now a standard procedure, but it's not a standard procedure we should tolerate."